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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: St. Louis County Historical Society
38.2 Ojibwe Drawings, Men

In the summer of 1856—soon after his late 1855 return to the United States from Europe—Johnson traveled west to Superior, Wisconsin, to visit his brother Reuben Johnson and his sister Sarah Osgood Johnson and her husband William Henry Newton. Superior was a growing town, specifically growing on land that had been Ojibwe territory; as many speculators were doing at that time, Johnson made some real estate investments. While in Superior he made portraits of family members and other residents. In 1857 he turned down a commission from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to draw a portrait of Longfellow’s daughters in favor of a second trip to Superior and the Lake Superior region, including part of what was then Minnesota Territory. As he wrote to Longfellow on June 3, 1857,

One might reasonably wonder what attraction that wild region can have for an artist, in comparison with such advantages as would result to me from your kind & flattering offer, the patronage of the most celebrated in the most refined of places. Perhaps I cannot entirely justify it, but in a visit to that country last season I found so much of the picturesque, & of a character so much to my taste & in my line, that I then determined to employ this summer or a portion of it in making sketches of Frontier life, a national feature of our present condition & a field for art that is full of interest, & freshness & pleasing nature, & yet that has been but little treated [Quoted Carbone 1999a, p. 36].

That summer Johnson set out with local guide Stephen Bunga to see and depict Ojibwe encampments and people. He created a distinct body of work including eighteen paintings and twenty-five drawings of encampments, individuals, and groups that are an important record of Ojibwe life at that time, as well as Johnson’s interests and developing style. —AM

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Hills no. 38.2.3
Baur no. 438
Ken ne waw be mint [sic]
Alternate titles: Kenne waw be mint; Kennewawbemit
1857
Charcoal and white crayon on paper
8 x 7 1/2 in. (20.3 x 19 cm)
Initialed lower right: E.J.; inscribed lower center: Kenne waw be mint
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2022: Johnson traveled to Superior, Wisconsin and Minnesota Territory in 1856–57. Although many of his Superior works are dated 1856, there is no evidence that he made any of his works relating to Ojibwe people in 1856.

MacGibeny, 2022: According to Ojibwe scholars Professor Nic Reo, Dartmouth College, and Professor Margaret Noodin, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, the current spelling of the name "Ken ne waw be mint" is “Genawaabaminid” and the translation is “He who observes.” This subject also appears in the Johnson drawing Kenne waw be mint and Sesong enik.

St. Louis County Historical Society, Eastman Johnson Collection: Paintings of Chippewa Indians, 1961, p. 4, no. 29 [this drawing]: "Head, profile."

St. Louis County Historical Society, Eastman Johnson Collection: Paintings of Chippewa Indians, 1961, p. 3, no. 22 [drawing Kenne waw be mint and Sesong enik]: "Ken ne wa be Mint means 'Whom observed'."

Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
Richard Teller Crane, 1908 or 1909 (by purchase)
Presented by Richard Teller Crane to the City of Duluth, Minnesota, 1909
St. Louis County Historical Society, Duluth, Minnesota, February 1909 (by donation)
References
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 81, no. 438, as Ken ne waw be mint [sic].
SLCHS 1961
St. Louis County Historical Society. Eastman Johnson Collection: Paintings of Chippewa Indians. Duluth, MN: St. Louis County Historical Society, 1961, p. 4, no. 29, as Ken ne waw be mint [sic].
Coen 1976
Coen, Rena Neumann. Painting and Sculpture in Minnesota, 1820–1914. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976, pp. 33, 35, fig. 25, illus., as Kennewawbemit.
Johnston 1983a
Johnston, Patricia Condon. Eastman Johnson's Lake Superior Indians. Afton, MN: Johnston Publishing, 1983, p. 33, illus., as Kenne waw be mint.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): June 1970
Examination notes: Noted media is correct.
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Keywords
Record last updated March 27, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Ken ne waw be mint [sic], 1857 (Hills no. 38.2.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?SystemID=846 (accessed on March 28, 2024).